•Salt significantly affected microbial dynamics during doubanjiang fermentation.•Salt reduction increased the concentration of amino acid nitrogen in doubanjiang.•Low salt led to more kinds and ...higher amount of volatile flavor compounds in doubanjiang.•More total acids and biogenic amines were observed in lower salt doubanjiang.•Conditional pathogens were observed in lower salt doubanjiang fermentation.
This study aimed to elaborate the roles of salt concentration on doubanjiang (broad bean paste) fermentation. Three sets of doubanjiang samples which had lower salt concentration than commercial doubanjiang were prepared and the physicochemical parameters, biogenic amines, flavor, microbial dynamics were analyzed during fermentation. The salt reduction showed significant effect on the dynamics of bacteria and fungi, thus leading to doubanjiang samples with different properties. Salt reduction during fermentation relieved the osmotic pressure towards microbes, which favored the accumulation of amino acid nitrogen, amino acids, and volatile flavor compounds. However, higher concentrations of total acids and biogenic amines and the existence of conditional pathogens, such as Klebsiella, Cronobacter and Acinetobacter genera, were observed in salt reduced doubanjiang samples, which was undesirable for doubanjiang quality. This study would deep our understanding of the roles of salt on doubanjiang fermentation.
In recent years, underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs) have attracted widespread attention in academia. Prolonging the network lifetime is a crucial issue for UASNs. Compared with traditional ...wireless sensor networks (WSNs), stringent energy becomes more critical in UASNs because the battery equipped at sensor nodes has the limited amount of energy and it is much more difficult to replace or recharge in underwater circumstance. This fact motivates us to pursue the solutions to reduce power consumption by using relay nodes and flow allocation mechanism in order to extend the network lifetime. In this paper, the issues of relay node placement and the flow allocation have been considered as a joint problem and are formulated into an integer nonlinear programming problem, which is node placement-hard in general. To solve the problem efficiently, this paper proposes a novel heuristic scheme for UASNs, which works based on a 3-D architecture. The proposed scheme consists of three algorithms, named as Alternative Flow and Relay-node Adjustment as a whole. Extensive simulation experiments demonstrate that the proposed scheme offers a simple yet attractive solution to the problem.
Efficient neighbor discovery in vehicular ad hoc networks is crucial to a number of applications such as driving safety and data transmission. The main challenge is the high mobility of vehicles. In ...this paper, we proposed a new algorithm for quickly discovering neighbor node in such a dynamic environment. The proposed rapid discovery algorithm is based on a novel mobility prediction model using Kalman filter theory, where each vehicular node has a prediction model to predict its own and its neighbors' mobility. This is achieved by considering the nodes' temporal and spatial movement features. The prediction algorithm is reinforced with threshold triggered location broadcast messages, which will update the prediction model parameters, and improve the efficiency of the neighbor discovery algorithm. Through extensive simulations, the accuracy, robustness, and efficiency properties of our proposed algorithm are demonstrated. Compared with other methods of neighbor discovery, which are frequently used in HP-AODV, ARH, and ROMSG, the proposed algorithm needs the least overheads and can reach the lowest neighbor error rate while improving the accuracy rate of neighbor discovery. In general, the comparative analysis of different neighbor discovery methods in routing protocol is obtained, which shows that the proposed solution performs better than HP-AODV, ARH, and ROMSG.
Aspirin and its active metabolite salicylate have emerged as promising agents for the chemoprevention of colorectal cancer (CRC). Moreover, aspirin suppresses the progression of established CRCs. ...However, the underlying molecular mechanisms are not completely understood. Here we found that salicylate induces the expression of the miR-34a and miR-34b/c genes, which encode tumor suppressive microRNAs, in a p53-independent manner. Salicylate activated AMPK, thereby activating NRF2, which directly induced miR-34a/b/c expression via ARE motifs. In addition, salicylate suppressed c-MYC, a known repressor of NRF2-mediated transactivation, via activating AMPK. The suppression of c-MYC by salicylate was necessary for NRF2-mediated activation of miR-34a/b/c. Inactivation of miR-34a/b/c largely abrogated the inhibitory effects of salicylate on migration, invasion and metastasis formation by CRC cells. In the future, aspirin and its derivates may be used therapeutically to activate miR-34a and miR-34b/c in tumors that have lost p53.
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by intracellular neurofibrillary tangles. The primary component, hyperphosphorylated Tau (p-Tau), contributes to neuronal death. Recent studies have shown ...that autophagy efficiently degrades p-Tau, but the mechanisms modulating autophagy and subsequent p-Tau clearance in AD remain unclear. In our study, we first analyzed the relationship between the inflammatory activation and autophagy in brains derived from aged mice and LPS-injected inflammatory mouse models. We found that inflammatory activation was essential for activation of autophagy in the brain, which was neuronal ATG5-dependent. Next, we found that autophagy in cultured neurons was enhanced by LPS treatment of cocultured macrophages. In further experiments designed to provoke chronic mild stimulation of TLR4 without inducing obvious neuroinflammation, we gave repeated LPS injections (i.p., 0.15 mg/kg, weekly for 3 mo) to transgenic mice overexpressing human Tau mutant (P301S) in neurons. We observed significant enhancement of neuronal autophagy, which was associated with a reduction of cerebral p-Tau proteins and improved cognitive function. In summary, these results show that neuroinflammation promotes neuronal autophagy and that chronic mild TLR4 stimulation attenuates AD-related tauopathy, likely by activating neuronal autophagy. Our study displays the beneficial face of neuroinflammation and suggests a possible role in the treatment of AD patients.
Sepsis-induced cardiomyopathy (SIC) is a major complication of sepsis. SET and MYND domain containing 1 (SMYD1) has central importance in heart development, and its role in SIC has not been ...identified. Herein, we found that the expression of SMYD1 was downregulated in myocardial tissues of SIC patients (from GEO database: GSE79962) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced SIC rats, and LPS-induced H9c2 cardiomyocytes. We used LPS-stimulated H9c2 cells that mimic sepsis in vitro to explore the function of SMYD1 in SIC. MTT assay, LDH and CK-MB release assay, flow cytometry, and ELISA assay showed that SMYD1 overexpression enhanced cell viability, alleviated cell injury, impeded apoptosis, and reduced the level of proinflammatory factors and NF-κB activation under the condition of LPS stimulation. Moreover, SMYD1 exerted protective effect on H9c2 cells stimulated with LPS through relieving endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. In conclusion, overexpression of SMYD1 alleviates cardiac injury through relieving ER stress during sepsis.
The Underwater Internet of Things (UIoT) has emerged as one of the prominent technologies in the development of future ocean monitoring systems, where mobile edge elements (such as autonomous ...underwater vehicles (AUVs)) provide a promising method for the data collection from sensor nodes. However, as an important part of the UIoT, underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) are severely affected by the underwater dynamic environment. For instance, node locations change continuously, which significantly increases the difficulty of data collection. To solve this problem, the concept of an inevitable communication space (ICS) is proposed. The ICS is calculated by analyzing the variation in the position of nodes and the communication range. Furthermore, an ICS-based dynamic data collection algorithm (ICS-DDCA) for UIoT is proposed to collect underwater data. This method utilizes the ICS instead of the initial location of the node for data collection to further improve the performance of the algorithm and shorten the data collection time. The simulation results demonstrate that compared with the energy-efficient data collection over AUV-assisted (EEDA) and data collection algorithms based on probabilistic neighborhood (PNCS-GHA), ICS-DDCA can effectively reduce the collection time, while ensuring the full completion of data collection.
With economic and social development, the transport sector is growing rapidly, leading to a surge in energy consumption and environmental degradation. New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) are regarded as an ...important tool to alleviate energy and environmental issues, but the market share of NEVs in China is low, and how to increase the market share of NEVs is an urgent issue. This study constructs an evolutionary game model between local governments and automakers to explore the evolutionary stable strategy (ESS) of both under different combinations of subsidy and carbon tax, aiming to find rational policies to promote the development of the NEVs. Considering the possible delay effect of the game process, a time-delayed differential equation is established to analyze the effects of random time delay on the stability of the system. Finally, a numerical simulation is carried out to obtain the following conclusions: constant subsidy and carbon tax policy is not conducive to the proliferation of NEVs, variable subsidy and carbon tax policy is effective in the short term, and variable subsidy and constant carbon tax policy is effective in the long term; strengthening the entry of carbon tax can help to develop the NEVs industry; the initial value will affect the evolution of system under constant policy; excessive time delay can cause the system to lose its original stability.
Mutations in optineurin (OPTN) are associated with several human disorders including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG). OPTN is known to be a multifunctional ...autophagy receptor that plays important roles in NF-κB signaling, vesicle trafficking, maintenance of the Golgi apparatus and autophagy. Given that a loss of neurons and an abnormal aggregation of disease proteins are two key features of neurodegenerative diseases, protein quality control systems are considered to be tightly associated with neurodegeneration. In this study, we investigated the involvement of the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) and the autophagy-lysosome pathway, two major intracellular protein quality control systems, in the regulation of wild-type (WT) OPTN, ALS-linked mutant E478G OPTN and POAG-linked mutant E50K OPTN. Our data revealed that the UPS, not the autophagy-lysosome pathway, is the major system for degradation and aggregation of OPTN. Moreover, we found that Hrd1, an E3 ubiquitin ligase, could play an important role in the protein quality control of OPTN. Our results demonstrated that overexpression of Hrd1 increased the proteasomal degradation and microtubule-dependent aggresome formation of OPTN in the microtubular organizing center, whereas knockdown of Hrd1 stabilized OPTN and inhibited aggresome formation of OPTN.
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Endostatin (ES) is a c‐terminal proteolytic fragment of collagen XVIII with promising antitumour properties in several tumour models, including human glioblastoma. We ...hypothesized that this peptide could interact with plasma membrane ion channels and modulate their functions.
EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH Using cell proliferation and migration assays, patch clamp and Western blot analysis, we studied the effects of ES on the proliferation and migration of human glioblastoma U87 cells, mediated by T‐type Ca2+ channels.
KEY RESULTS Extracellular application of ES reversibly inhibited T‐type Ca2+ channel currents (T‐currents) in U87 cells, whereas L‐type Ca2+ currents were not affected. This inhibitory effect was associated with a hyperpolarizing shift in the voltage‐dependence of inactivation but was independent of G‐protein and protein tyrosine kinase‐mediated pathways. All three α1 subunits of T‐type Ca2+ channels (CaV3), α1G (CaV3.1), α1H (CaV3.2) and α1I (CaV3.3), were endogenously expressed in U87 cells. Using transfected HEK293 or CHO cells, we showed that only CaV3.1 and CaV3.2, but not CaV3.3 or CaV1.2 (L‐type), channel currents were significantly inhibited. More interestingly, ES inhibited the proliferation and migration of U87 cells in a dose‐dependent manner. Pretreatment of the cells with the specific T‐type Ca2+ channel blocker mibefradil occluded these inhibitory effects of ES.
CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS This study provides the first evidence that the antitumour effects of ES on glioblastoma cells is through direct inhibition of T‐type Ca2+ channels and gives new insights into the future development of a new class of antiglioblastoma agents that target the proliferation and migration of these cells.
LINKED ARTICLE This article is commented on by Santoni et al., pp. 1244–1246 of this issue. To view this commentary visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1476‐5381.2012.01908.x
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